A Simplified Method for Seismic Behavior of Retaining Walls with Strip Load on the Backfill.

A retaining wall is generally provided to protect the unsupported soil mass. For designing the retaining walls, pseudostatic methods are well established for the computation of soil thrust and coefficients of earth pressure in seismic conditions. In the present paper, the coefficients of active earth pressure due to soil wedge and strip load present on the cohesionless backfill of the retaining wall are determined by considering the pseudostatic method for seismic conditions and using the kinematic limit approach. The proposed solution considers the presence of soil–wall friction angle, as well as the size and distance of the strip load. Closed-form solutions are provided to calculate the coefficients of active earth pressure. It can be observed that for the strip load of magnitude 30 kPa and width 1.65 m situated close to the retaining wall, the coefficient of earth pressure due to soil wedge decreases by 10.05% compared with the absence of the strip load. The proposed method has been compared with the investigations available in the literature. The influence of the magnitude of the strip load and its distance from the wall is thoroughly investigated and presented with different parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]